How to use The Plan

The Plan exists to guide a Christian into purposeful Christian planning. It is a planner, tracker, and goal-setter to guide a Christian in maturing as a disciple of Christ and multiplying disciples for Christ in the regular rhythms of each week. The Plan is structured to facilitate planning and progress with these two important wills of God in view. Christians don’t need a

new plan but need to plan for and around God’s great plan in and through them.

The Plan points the Christian in five daily directions to ground the Christian in his or her role as a disciple and disciple-maker: upward, downward, backward, forward, and around. Dashed traceable symbols along the top of each weekly planner page offers the believer an opportunity to track their daily progress in looking upward in prayer, downward into God’s word, backward to the truths of the gospel, forward into ministry, and all-around illustrating God’s mission to evangelize the world. These five directions form the foundation of the planner and are trackable via tracing the dashed symbols in each of the five directions as they are completed on a daily basis.

At the bottom of each weekly planner page are two sections labeled “disciplines of delight” and “disciple-making disciplines.” The “disciplines of delight” allow the planner to track additional items daily (customizable by the user) and the “disciple-making disciplines” spurs the planner to think and commit to discipleship patterns with others weekly (see pages 14-15)

Overall, from top to bottom, the weekly planning page prompts and prepares a Christian to invest him or herself in being a disciple and making disciples, first. However, the middle of the weekly planning pages, filled with daily hour-long planning slots and a weekly to-do log, fill the majority of the planner’s space and structure. The Plan is designed to bookend our plans with God’s plans for our lives. Therefore, The Plan keeps God’s plan in focus as you make your plans throughout the week.

The Plan focuses on the weekly planning rhythms but features several resources to aid and serve a “planning with purpose” mentality. This planner is broken down into four main sections: • the Priorities • the Year • the Weeks • the Rhythms The Priorities section helps a Christian planner prioritize his or her key roles and goals for the year, produce a life mission statement, and process through the structure and rhythms of an ideal week. It forms a foundation for purposeful planning.

The Year provides twelve monthly calendars to serve a believer with his or her long-range outlook and schedule. The monthly calendars are fully adaptable, and a Christian can use them at the start of the calendar year or begin them at any time during the year. They are undated and fully customizable.

The Week contains fifty-two weekly planning sheets in one-hour increments to optimize scheduling (can be customized for half-hour appt’s or meetings). Additionally, the sheets include a to-do list and project completion section to organize weekly tasks and track progress. The weekly planning sheets are made up of two sheets viewed side-by-side and are preceded by a Weekly Review and Journal sheet. The Journal sheet is designed to offer space to write down weekly sermon or bible study notes, and the Weekly Review serves to evaluate the previous’ week’s strengths and shortfalls. Together, these four sheets form the bedrock for a believer's weekly scheduling. Also, every twelve weeks The Plan provides quarterly evaluations & questions which help a planner assess his or her capacity and health in six critical areas.

Finally, Rhythms offers templates for daily Bible reading and prayer. A yearly bible reading plan and bible-modeled prayer plan are included to structure and serve the Christian’s devotional life. Additional note pages are included at the end for further reminders or notes. All in all, The Plan seeks to provide a structure for planning, evaluating, and implementing God’s plan as your plan.

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The “Week in View” section offers the planner a fully customizable weekly planner with fill-ins for month, day, and year. Start it whenever you want: mid-year, end of year, or the beginning of the year.

This section provides a planner with space to track and organize his or her running list of tasks and to-dos. The key at the top offers the planner a method for marking progress: “do” this week - “delay” till next week - “delegate” and wait - “done,” and it’s complete.

This section, “disciplines of delight,” offers a planner space to track personal daily habits or goals he or she would like to measure on a daily or weekly basis (sleep, exercise, fasting, emails, reading…). See help on pg. 12.

The “scripture memory” board provides room for a believer to write, reflect, and memorize one verse each week to keep God’s word stored fresh in their heart and mind (Psalm 119:11).

The five-directional symbol logs and reminds a planner to daily look back to the truth of the gospel, look up in prayer, look down into God’s word, look forward in ministry, and look around at God’s mission in the world. You may trace the dashed lines for all the habits you pray and complete daily.

The planning columns for each day allow a Christian to record activities and regularly scheduled events for each day of the week in hourly chunks or half/quarter hours by merely writing them in next to the hour (:15, :30, :45)

Each day offers opportunity for a Christian to note a “tGg” (trust God goal). He or she can commit an aspect of their day to intentionally looking away from themselves and towards the Lord. “What is impossible with man, is quite possible with God” (Matthew 19:26). Or, it may only function as a place where you make extra daily notes or reminders.

The “disciple-making disciplines” encourages a planner to specifically carry out a disciple-making application (4 I’s) for at least one person (disciple/ potential disciple) each week. Invite is to ask them to join you in something formal or informal that you are already attending (religious in nature or not). Involve is to join a disciple in doing something they like or are already doing. Invest is to train or teach a potential disciple something new (bible study, memorization, evangelism, decision-making). Inquire is to ask a disciple something specific about themselves (i.e. upbringing, church, decision to trust Christ, marriage, family, hobbies...).